No, not wheelchair users or the blind:
Patients with learning disabilities and autism have been detained for more than a decade while the number of children kept in hospitals is rising.Naturally, this is an OUTRAGE!
Rhidian Hughes, the VODG chief executive, said: “It is hard to imagine any other circumstances in which a British citizen could be detained indefinitely by the state, without trial.
“A rate that only halves the population of people living in long-stay units after 20 years is simply not good enough. Secluded institutionalised care is fundamentally wrong and exposes some of the most vulnerable citizens to serious risk of harm and risks damaging their wellbeing.”We've seen what releasing them into the population does to others' wellbeing, though, haven't we?
As well as having an autistic spectrum disorder, Bravery has an obsessive compulsive disorder and is likely to have a personality disorder. He has been held at Broadmoor hospital since mid-October.
He told the police he had to prove a point “to every idiot” who said he had no mental health problems, asking police if the incident was going to be on the news. He said: “I wanted to be on the news, who I am and why I did it, so when it is official no one can say anything else.”I'd rather the State erred on the side of caution.
5 comments:
We used to have lunatic asylums, places of safety, for those with serious mental illness.If patients are diagnosed medically and with no political interference then it is a good way to protect the patients and the public.
Is the problem of people rough sleeping partly down to people who are incapable of looking after themselves being turned out of institutions and then being expected to be able to take care of themselves? There have been election pledges to put an end to rough sleeping in a fairly impressive sounding timescale. But if some people still sleep on the streets no matter what facilities are provided for them, what would be the alternative to arresting them and placing them in some kind of institution?
@Stonyground: a fair bit of research has concluded that the vast majority of long term rough sleepers are suffering from some serious mental illnesses that either mean they choose to live rough, or are incapable of living in a more structured way. So yes, there seems to be a hardcore element who really should be managed via some sort of mental health order and placed in controlled environments for their own (and everyone else's) safety.
The trouble is that there appears to be this reluctance by the authorities to accept halfway houses when it comes to mental illnesses - for years the law was that you were either a nutter who needed full sectioning or you were as sane as the next man and free to do what you like. Thus you got the classic mental health 'bounce' person - someone who suffers from a serious mental illness that requires medication, but who can only be forceably medicated if they are sectioned. Thus you have to wait until they do something serious enough to be sectioned, then medicate them while under the section. They then improve (due to the medication) and get released back into the community. Where as a free agent they are entitled to stop taking the meds.......eventually their illness comes back and the whole cycle repeats. I know someone who lost 20-30 years of his life on this cycle, bouncing in and out of just about every mental health hospital in southern England.
Eventually Cameron's government did something good for once and created a legal halfway house - a mental health order that allowed people to live in their own homes and live freely, but only under the condition of taking their meds. If they refused the authorities are entitled to section them, and make them take the meds. Since being put on one of these orders my friend has not been sectioned once and has lived quietly for over 5 years now, the longest he has ever been so stable. It has changed his life infinitely, for the better.
Something similar would be needed to deal with the mentally ill who are the hard core of rough sleepers, in my view.
Some years ago I used to work in the evenings as a literacy and numeracy tutor for the basic adult education service. One of my students was a schizophrenic. His illness was well controlled on medication and, while tragically dim, he was very pleasant, never missed a class and, given all his difficulties, lived a worthwhile life. It was a pleasure to teach him and I remember him fondly. Then, in their unfathomable wisdom, the authorities decided to move a fellow schizophrenic into a neighbouring flat. He was evidently floridly mad, as my student described being frightened by his shouting and aggressive behaviour. That was the last conversation I ever had with my student. Within a few days he was hacked to death. Of course, proximate responsibility lies with the knife-wielding nutter but the authorities are culpable too, I believe. Whether it was carelessness, incompetence, indifference or some hare-brained notion that it would be a good idea to foster a psychotic ghetto I was unable to discover. There really isn't a single part of the public sector that isn't absolute shit.
"If patients are diagnosed medically and with no political interference then it is a good way to protect the patients and the public."
Exactly!
"But if some people still sleep on the streets no matter what facilities are provided for them, what would be the alternative to arresting them and placing them in some kind of institution?"
There really aren't any alternatives. In some situations, it must surely be the case that society's needs outweigh personal freedom.
"Eventually Cameron's government did something good for once ..."
Stopped clock, and all that, I suppose.
"Of course, proximate responsibility lies with the knife-wielding nutter but the authorities are culpable too, I believe."
They are. Why does corporate manslaughter never get applied in these cases?
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